About the Academy

In January 2014, the State of Connecticut, through the Strategic IT investment bond, awarded the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC) $1,870,000 in funding to create the CT Education Academy, a 21st century online learning ecosystem designed to provide scalable, cost-effective and measurable training to all employees of the State of Connecticut.

The program is a collaborative effort between the Department of Administrative Services and Charter Oak State College/Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium in partnership with the Department of Rehabilitation Services, the Governor's Executive Committee for LEAN initiatives, and Central Connecticut State University.

The Academy provides a flexible approach to state workforce training – offering online courses to supplement in-person instruction through DAS, and is designed to address multiple State of Connecticut priorities, including increasing employee efficiency and productivity.

The CT Education Academy will offer online training in Diversity, Workplace Violence, and Sexual Harassment which are required for all State employees as well as an optional Active Shooter Response training course. Other professional development courses and programs will be introduced over the five year initiative. A master administrative system will provide scheduling, tracking, recording, and reporting of required and completed training by employees.

The CT Education Academy with its existing multi-agency partnerships continues to solicit state agency partners in order to provide cost effective online, asynchronous training courses/programs to meet the individualized needs of each state agency and their employees. This initiative, which will provide required employee training, micro skills training, and broad skills training will effectively "right size" training across the large number of state agencies to improve the quality of service provided to Connecticut's citizens.

This money was awarded through a competitive process which evaluated innovation, cost savings, effectiveness and project reach, and ties directly to Governor Malloy's priorities for innovation in state government.